The Killer Pizza Quest
Years have passed and our skills have increased
We can now make crust and have come up with many non-traditional pizzas that we were silly enough not to write down.
August 2009
For the crust I have discovered that a very simplified version of Peter
Reinhart's highly anal-retentive essay length pizza dough recipe works
just fine:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html
I should probably make notes about what I did different but it mostly
consists of ignoring most the time for the dough to rest (you do have
to give it some here and there) and not bothering to use a mixer and
not counting the number of strokes and (you get the idea). What's
cool is this makes 6 balls of dough that you can freeze.)
As you might guess, the dough turned out just fine albeit mishapen but
that's my fault for never working at a pizza place.
A Pesto-inspired Mis-shapen Pizza:
Make the crust - a day ahead is best. Pull one roll out of the frig or freezer and let it come up to room temperature.
Roll or hand flatten it into some shapr that will allow you to put topings on it and place one some sort of pizza pan or stone.
These web pages are because I can never remember exactly what I did and it's still not reproducible but certainly closer.
Spray the dough with olive oil
This one was topped with:
canned diced tomatoes
sliced button mushrooms (2 I think)
artichoke hearts
grated armesan cheese
chopped walnuts (skip next time)
pine nuts
fresh basil
I completely forgot and should have added:
sliced olives
garlic
sauted onion
NO sauce
Bake in oven at 425 degrees for 14-5 min.
Pizza Margarita
tomato sauce
onion
garlic
basil
Mushroom Pizza
tomato sauce
mushrooms
olive
cheese
From a few years ago
A good first draft
To summarize our pizza endeavor yesterday so we can continue to tweak it:
(Terri's real particular about the garlic not getting burned - if in doubt saute it with the mushrooms instead.)
Good quality pizza crust - working on our own but don't have it written down yet or a Boboli
Pizza sauce - my fav is to cook down the "Quick" Tomato Sauce found the the Silver Pallette
high quality olive oil (we used Stone Mountain Sevillano)
1 white onion - sliced
8 cloves garlic - crushed
1/2 pound mushrooms - sliced
8 oz mozzarella
sundried tomatoes (we used Calif. Sun Dry extra moist - not dried)
1 small can black olives - presliced
Preheat oven to 450 with pizza stone.
Saute onions and garlic in olive oil in a skillet over over medium-high
heats till onions are soft and yellow/brown(ish), but garlic is not
burned. Set aside. In same pan, add more oil and saute
mushrooms till slightly reduced and they have absorbed the oil.
Add to same bowl as onion and garlic and mix together.
Take crust and spread sauce on it and top with cheese, tomatoes,
olives, and onion/garlic/mushroom mixture. Slide pizza onto stone
in oven and bake for 10 minutes.
Yum.
Back to the Cooking main page.
